Friday, May 26, 2017

The Fetch

A ghost for any game. Mechanically not too special, but its ecology should keep players busy for at least an hour, since it has to trick characters into hurting each other.

Fetch

A fetch is the ghost of a lost soul that takes a form identical to its victim in order to replace them. Being bound to a given location until they can successfully bring about the death of a human and take its place, the fetch searches for the weakest mortal it can find and attempts to sow fatal confusion.

Friends of the victim who are unaware of the nature of the fetch take psychological damage as if they'd just seen their friend commit whatever atrocity the fetch just has or take whatever wound the fetch has appeared to take.

If a fetch is tricked into imitating a form tattooed with a spell of banishment, its ectoplasmic skin will begin to dissolve and the ghost will be exorcised.

Typical Fetch

(Demon City stats)

Calm: 2

Agility: as target

Toughness: as target (but see below)

Perception: 2

Appeal: as target

Cash: 0

Knowledge: 3

Calm Check: 5

Special abilities:

Serial Ectoplasmic Form: Fetches condense into bodies that are identical to those of their victims in most ways (voice, mannerisms, etc) and are vulnerable to mundane attacks. However, if this body is slain, the Fetch’s invisible and its incorporeal soul remains until exorcised.

In combat, the fetch is normally indistinguishable from the victim.

Weaknesses:

A fetch is always bound to the specific geographical location where it died (a building, a graveyard, a lake, a hospital, a neighborhood, a dungeon, etc) and cannot leave until it brings about the death of a victim and thereby replaces it permanently.

A fetch cannot directly physically harm the target it has imitated and must usually employ deception to cause it to be killed by some other party. Its most common tactic is to use the new form to kill one of the victim’s friends, get “caught” by other companions, then flee and conceal itself until these companions kill their “dangerous” friend.

A fetch cannot adopt a new form or become incorporeal until its current target has left the area the fetch haunts or that body is "killed".

Most fetches cannot bear the sound of bells due to association with church bells—in some cases, the feared sound is different and is associated with the way the creature died (for example, a victim of a drunk driving accident may not be able to stand the sound of a beer can opening).

If a fetch adopts a form tattooed with scriptures of banishment, its new skin will burn and the fetch will be exorcised.